Abby and Andy were Labrador Retrievers of mine who have since passed away. I started this blog to chronicle their lives.
Now that I've told their stories, I will post whatever pops into my head.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Corporate Snakes

The patio is circled in red.

I saw an ominous sign during my orientation week when I started out at GSK. It's hard to believe that just over 10 years ago I started employment at GSK. At the start, I was happy to be there and back in NC.

On the fourth day of orientation, I had lunch with the director of the department that I was assigned to. There were only 3 people that dined with us. The third person was a chemist like me except he was hired straight out of school.

The director seem like a nice enough guy on the surface. I don't remember much about that day or what was said. I do remember the director telling me that I'd find "more opportunities at GSK than at other companies." That was a goddamned lie. People at my level were treated like technicians or automatons: the children were to be seen and not heard. But that is not the point of this story.

The most distinct memory of that orientation lunch is what I saw. We dined on a patio outside the cafeteria. Towards the end of the meal, I looked over the director's shoulder and saw a 4-5ft black snake slithering across the patio.

I immediately thought "Oh shit, that is an ominous sign." It would have been crazy for me to leave that company then and there merely based on something similar to a ploy seen in a "B movie." However, maybe my life would have been better off had I left.

It turns out the snake-sighting was indeed ominous.

How was I supposed to know things wouldn't work out?

How was I supposed to know my first boss would be an asshole who would undermine me when he went to breakfast with the senior scientists and talk shit about me then?

How was I supposed to know that my co-workers on my first project would deliberately leave off a key aspect on the synthesis of a certain heterocycle resulting in me spinning my wheels for 2 months, leaving me to look incompetent?

How was I supposed to know my co-workers would be assholes? (Actually, I had a hunch about this one but failed to heed the hunch. During my interview, I saw more flags than at the U.N. except all of them were red. I wanted to be in NC so bad that my better judgment was clouded.)